Vibration and Buckling Response of Width Tapered Laminated Composite Beams Using Ritz Method for Rotorcraft Blade

Abstract

In this study, Symmetric cross-ply linear width tapered laminated composite beam is considered. Due to the variety of width tapered composite beams and the complexity of the analysis, no closed-form analytical solution is available at present regarding free vibration response. Therefore in the present work, the Ritz method is used for the free vibration analysis with considering uni-axial compressive and tensile force. The elastic stiffness of the width tapered composite beam is analyzed compared to uniform laminated composite beam. Free vibration which is significant to investigate the dynamic characteristics of the structure using Ritz method with and without effect of axial tensile and compressive force is analyzed. The analysis is based on 1D laminated beam theory. The governing equations are obtained by means of Hamilton’s principle. Tsai-Wu failure analysis is considered to find the tensile and compressive failure force for each ply in the laminate. Buckling analysis is conducted to find the critical buckling force for the laminated composite beam-column subjected to different sets of boundary conditions. Simply supported, Clamped-free, Clamped-Clamped edge boundary conditions are considered. A detailed parametric study is conducted on tapered composite beams made of NCT/301 graphite-epoxy to investigate the effects of the ratio of the width of the thick section to thin section, boundary conditions, effects of axial and compressive force on natural frequency and buckling analysis.